Anchor
by Missmishka
Summary: Slight future!fic. Rogue reflects upon the role Logan's hands have had in her life as she sits by his bedside after he's injured in battle. COMPLETE. Rated for mild descriptions of severe bodily injury.


For Jedi Ani Unduli and all my XME readers through the years because you remind me why the first fandom/OTP is always the best. It's been years since I wrote these two and my writing has improved (I promise, no egregious accent use in this one) and I love you all not for reading my work, but for not letting the Wolverine/Rogue pairing or the X-Men Evolution 'verse be forgotten. You encouraged me then and inspire me now. Thank you all.

**_Anchor by MissMishka_**

DISCLAIMER: The usual warnings, I claim no ownership of these characters, they are simply borrowed with love and adoration from the original creators to have their stories, thoughts or circumstances embellished on a little more than the original format had done. Not for any profit.

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Logan's hands are large and strong; almost twice as broad as Rogue's slender palm with thick, blunt fingers.

She knows his hands almost as well as she knows her own. She knows the eternally unmarred skin between his knuckles through which is claws cut when he unsheathed the adamantium blades. She knows the lines on his palms and the calluses that have managed to form from years of hard manual labor. She knows the grit forever under his short fingernails to be a mix of dirt, grease and, often, blood. She knows the strength and power in his hands that he tempers with the X-Men and unleashes on their enemies.

She knows the look of his hands, but not the true feel of them. Her mutation requires there always be something between the warm press of their flesh; leather gloves on his hands and concealing clothing on most all of her body. His touch is always muted by layers and she hates that, but often wonders if she could survive actual contact given the effect their limited touching has on her.

She knows his hands are seldom idle and seeing them limp against the sheets makes her breath move sluggishly in her chest as the weight of worry threatens to crush her.

In the hours since their retreat from the Sentinel fight, his back had slowly healed but he still shows no sign of regaining consciousness. After Hank and Ororo had done all they could to clean his wounds, Rogue had taken her position at his bedside and watched the muscle and flesh knit back together. Her face was still wet with tears she hadn't even known she shed during the process while her mind relived the pulsar blast that had nearly blown his body apart.

His hands; _those hands_, had been shoving her into the chopper that hovered over the ground in wait to swoop them all to safety. She'd just braced herself on the floor and turned to help him in when Bobby called out the warning that did little good to stop the shot that slammed into Wolverine's back. It had felt like time stopped when their eyes had met in that moment and she saw his awareness of pain and injury from the impact before his expression blanked into nothingness as his body went limp; began to fall away from the helicopter. Without hesitation, she had lunged forward to grab him and would have fallen from the aircraft if not for the Piotr's quick grasp of her ankle to stop her headlong plunge forward.

It had taken all the strength that the two of them could muster and the addition of Beast's agility in hanging off the skids to get Logan's limp body into the chopper so that Ororo could finally take off at speed back to the mansion. Bobby had been rendered speechless and Kitty nearly dissolved into tears when Wolverine sprawled on his belly on the floor of the aircraft and they all got an eyeful of the damage. It had taken all of Rogue's self-control not to hurl at the smell of burnt flesh and the sight of his metal-encased spine exposed by the flesh that had been blasted away clean to the bone. She'd fallen back at Jean's urging and gladly allowed her teammates to begin working on the injured man. Neither Hank nor Jean had spoken as they surveyed the damage and moved to cover Logan's back with gauze and bandages; a chore that completely depleted their supply in the first aid kit.

She hadn't understood then why Scott was shouting back from the co-pilot's seat to ask if _she_ was ok or why Colossus had laid a heavy, comforting hand on her shoulder as she kept her gaze focused on the wounded man when everything in her screamed to look away from the horror. She hadn't understood why Professor Xavier had gone immediately to her when they arrived back at the Institute and why the man had forced her to allow the others to see to carrying Logan's body to the medlabs for Hank to begin doing whatever could be done.

When she had obeyed Xavier's gentle instruction and Shadowcat's urging to go clean up, Rogue had realized why the others had reacted so to her. The mirror showed a blood-splattered version of herself that somehow managed to look even paler than she always did. She looked an ashen, shell-shocked and walking dead apparition of herself. She'd raised her fingers to brush at the dried droplets of Logan's blood on her cheeks and had only smeared it with blood still slick on her leather gloves. Every piece of that uniform had been shredded in her haste to get it from her body so that she could get under the scalding spray of water to try erasing the crimson from her skin. She hadn't even felt the gore hitting her face but she would never forget the sight of Logan's life on her flesh.

She hadn't cried in the shower where the water could hide and wash away the tears.

She hadn't cried as she'd been forced to stand vigil outside the operating room where Hank, Ororo and Jean all worked to stop bleeding veins and arteries that threatened to kill Wolverine before his healing factor could do the real work of saving his life.

She hadn't reacted at all when they'd finally put him in a recovery room and allowed her access to his bedside.

They'd faded away and left her alone to stare at Logan lying on his stomach, limp and lifeless on the gurney with bandages covering him from head to waist and she had listened to the monitors beeping. Blood had begun to seep through the pristine white on his back and alarms began sounding for the first time on those monitors and Hank raced back into the room. Time and time again in the first two hours the process had repeated with countless changes of the dressing required until finally they just stop trying to stifle the flow of blood and had opted to let it go. Her tears had begun to roll unchecked down her cheeks as the bedding beneath him soaked then dripped with Wolverine's blood.

Through the whole process she had watched him heal and known without a doubt that his body would recover. His flesh had been stripped away to the bone before in a process to nightmarish for her to stomach thinking on when he underwent the Weapon X process that coated his natural bones with liquid adamanitum.

Through it all, all she could think of were his hands.

That moment so long ago in the X-Jet when it has been his gloved hand extending to welcome her to the X-Men after she'd learned some of the truths about Mystique.

Countless judo, meditation and fight training sessions with his hands guiding her through the motions that were now seared into her muscle memory for survival, self-defense and inner calm.

His voice bringing her through the chaos of her power surge and those hands being there to catch her when she fell.

All the times his hand had been there to reach for her when she needed help; to smack her when he felt she needed it and to praise her when she didn't feel she deserved it.

Most vivid is the memory of their roles reversed when she was the one in a bed in this sickbay and he had claimed the spot at her bedside; his large hand holding hers and willing her through the darkness until she clasped him in return.

She helped as the bleeding stopped and his back healed enough for him to be moved to a fresh bed and laid on his back and she remained steadfast at his side through all the hours after.

Others came and went to check on him, but few dared venture into the room to disturb her. She felt their presence outside the window, though, looking in on them with various worries and concern.

She kept her attention on Logan.

She spoke to him some, remembering how hearing his voice had helped her, but she couldn't think of much to say as she looked at her gloved fingers against the slack paleness of his hand.

In those moments, she came to realize that she had been with the X-Men for five years already and she had likely been in love with this man for each and every second of that time without realizing it for what it was.

The friendship and kinship had been oddly instantaneous between them, but she had never really thought of there being more to it. Not on her part and certainly not on his, but as she stares at his hand her mind can't stop looping all the times and ways that he had touched her and allowed her to touch him. The intimacy of their gestures had been so subtle that even she hadn't caught on to it.

Now that she thinks she has some idea as to the depth of what may be between them, she sits and gives at the realization that it is in all likelihood gone.

When the Professor makes his third foray to the lab to look in on them, she opens her mind to him without taking her attention from Logan. The telepath doesn't take the invitation into her thoughts, but a familiar whirring tells her that he has taken it as invitation to enter the room.

"I am told you have not yet eaten," the man says softly.

"Not hungry," she shrugs without looking toward the last tray of sandwiches that had been brought into her an hour or so ago.

"It will do no one any good for you to collapse into his bed when he is finally healed to vacate it, Rogue. You must see to your own needs to best care for his."

She makes no comment to that and knows he wasn't expecting one. They're silent for several moments and she tries not to flinch under the weight of his knowing, caring gaze on her slightly stooped shoulders.

"He will awaken," Xavier declares softly.

She knew that; knows that, but a shudder of relief still quakes through her at having the knowledge spoken by someone other than the voices in her head.

"Will it _be_ him, though?" she voices her truest fear.

As she had done several times since this ordeal began, she quietly stripped off her glove and carefully moved her fingertips to trace the lines of Logan's palm, relishing the new feel of his hot and slightly rough skin before her mutation kicks in and the pull begins.

"I absorb his power," she whispers as she reluctantly separates their flesh, "I feel the mutation; his healing factor, enhanced senses and strength. He isn't there, though. The touch always comes with more than the power; I absorb the person's _whole life_; feelings, memories and habits. I touch him and all there is is the mutation."

"His body has been through a great deal, Rogue," the Professor wheels closer to put forward a supportive hand that she shrugs away reflexively. "His mind simply needs time to recover."

"Is he still in there? Can you see him?" she turns to look at him for the first time, green eyes pleading without her permission. "His body; his _mutation_ survived the Weapon X process, but he and we may never fully know who he was before then. What if it's the same this time?"

As much as her young heart wants platitudes; she has to respect Charles for his honesty when a lie could have stopped the tears welling up in her eyes.

"I have not been able to communicate with him yet telepathically, but that does not mean hope should be abandoned, my dear. Should it come to be that he has forgotten the life he created here, then you must remember that we are still here to remind him. This will not be like the military did to him; he has not been abandoned to flounder with rediscovery. He is not gone and if he is lost, we will show him that this is home."

Her eyes squeeze shut at his words, a fist of emotion grips her heart and throat until she feels like she can't breathe or swallow past the restriction. Never has she been prouder to be part of this group and she shudders to think what would have come of her if she had forever run from Professor Xavier's X-Men. She may have been spared the current hurt that she feels with her emotions going through the gauntlet in wait for Logan to awaken, but she would have been denied so much love without these mutants that have become her family.

"Thank you," she whispers, not sure herself just what all she thanks him for.

He departs with a mental brush that she knows is meant to remind her that he is there whenever she needs him.

It takes only seconds after he leaves and a single shuddering breath for her control to break. She falls forward, forehead pressing against Logan's thigh; sobbing out hours of worry and years of feelings she'd been too naïve to recognize. Words pour from her with the tears, but she has no memory of whatever comes from her lips as she talks her throat raw and her mouth dry. After the storm, she rests heavy and wrecked beside him, cheek against the tear-soaked sheet covering him and her swollen eyes fighting to remain open watching for his return to consciousness.

She loses that battle.

A hand drifting over her hair slowly stirs her back to wakefulness some unknown time later. Her first want is to smack it away; thinking Kitty or Kurt had crept in to try offering comfort again. Then some part of her recognizes the weight of the hand and the bluntness of the fingers tangling in the chunk of white strands in her hair. She goes deathly still for a moment, hardly daring to hope or believe as she forces her eyes to open.

It hurts; everything in her hurts, but her eyes especially are gritty and sore from all her crying. Focusing takes longer than she would have liked but when she manages it her gaze finds familiar dark eyes staring down at her.

His name escapes her parched lips as a barely recognizable croak and he doesn't really react to it. She sees confusion in his expression and knows in that moment that he isn't fully restored to her yet.

"Stripes," he whispers; his own voice hoarse from tubes having been shoved down his throat earlier to keep him breathing as well as the IV in his wrist being the only way his body has gotten liquid in over a day.

He grips a few locks of white hair between his thumb and forefinger and tugs fondly as the nickname slips from his lips and if Rogue had had a tear left in her it would have spilled at that moment. Instead, uncaring of consequences, she gasps out a noise of pained relief and staggers to her feet so that she can press her gloved fingers to his strong jaw and stare into his eyes. He blinks up at her; confusion winning over recognition in the depths of his brown eyes, but she doesn't care as she drops her forehead to his and presses her chapped lips to his.

The contact is woefully brief as she almost immediately feels the pull of her mutation against his and she wants to scream her anguish at that, but instead pulls away to shout telepathically and vocally for the others.

Strong, familiar fingers wrap around her wrist to stop her when she would have rushed from the room to hurry Hank and the Professor along to perform whatever check-ups they felt that Wolverine needed. She stops and looks quickly down at the hand that has managed to latch onto the skin exposed between the cuff of her short glove and the length of her long sleeve. He gives no reaction to the suction of his lifeforce through the contact, merely holds tighter when she moves to break the skin to skin connection.

"Don't leave me," he grinds out, something wild and desperate in his gaze that she hopes to never see again.

"Never," she promises with ever fiber of her being as she gently unwraps his fingers and clenches them reassuringly in both her gloved hands. "I'm right here."

Their hands part through necessity when the other crowd in and begin to work over Logan, checking his vitals and responses, but through it all she makes herself clearly visible in the crowd for him to see that she isn't leaving him.

She takes the bottle of water than Jean puts in her hands and drinks it down greedily while Ororo carefully tips a similar bottle against Wolverine's lips to coax water into his dry mouth. Rogue can't help but watch that jealously as Storm's bare fingers hold the underside of Logan's jaw as he gulps down the liquid. Advances have come and gone for the controlling of her mutation, but for the most part, Rogue remained untouchable and she envied through who could take physical contact so lightly.

The group seems to take forever to leave and Rogue refuses every one of their invitations to take her place at Wolverine's bedside so that she can go to her rooms for rest now that he's through the worst of it. Xavier finally ushers them all out when Logan begins to growl at the continued attention and the familiar noise is more comforting to them all than it is threatening to any one of them.

He looks to her once they're alone again and she resumes her seat beside the bed with what she hopes is a reassuring smile.

"Where are we?" he asks, causing her to nearly spit out the sip of water she'd just taken for herself.

"At the Institute," she blinks, capping the bottle and setting it aside to focus worriedly upon him. "How much do you remember?"

"I remember…mutants. Fighting. Pain. Anger. Claws," he frowns and shifts restlessly with each word, the memories clearly painful and vivid as he mentions them. Then he breathes deeply and goes still, hand lifting for his fingers to slide through the hair that she's grown out to fall like a curtain halfway down her torso. "I remember stripes," he idly strokes the white in her hair and locks his eyes with her; "I remember you."

"The rest will come," she assures him, tangling her fingers with his and not flinching at the strands of hair caught in the grip. "You've plenty of time to remember the rest."

"You kissed me," he moves his hand to drag the pad of his thumb over her lower lip.

"Seemed the thing to do," she tries to shrug it off with a blush; questioning the conclusions that she had reached with him unconscious.

"Should do it more often," he declares gruffly, one corner of his lips kicking up in a grin before his eyes drift shut and he drifts off to a deep, restorative sleep.

She takes him at his word and places a chaste series of kisses to his forehead and slack lips before moving to press her mouth to his knuckles as his hand is finally alive and responsive; gripping her fingers back in a tight hold. She bows her head over their clasped hands and offers thoughts of thanks and prayer while breathing deeply to begin restoring calm to her turbulent emotions.

As Xavier had said; the team was here to remind Logan of the man he had become with the X-Men and, as she has promised, Rogue would be right beside him. His hands have helped and guided her for years now; it was time for her to show him how much it meant to have such an anchor.


End file.
